Happy STS, Alina! 👋
What were the main inspirations behind Solana and Ariel’s characters/personalities?
Thanks for the ask! I would say that both of their personalities were heavily inspired by their main motifs. They are a sun/moon ship, but the sun/moon motif, as you already know, runs way deeper than simply being their primary ship trope. People have long associated the moon, especially the full moon, with magic, mystery, and various gods and goddesses. Ariel is a magical girl, she’s highly elusive, and none of her millions of fans know who she is, she’s named for a moon of Uranus, and she gets her powers from Phoebe, the titan of the moon, and later on from Hecate, and the triple moon sigil associated with witchcraft is a symbol of Hecate’s worship. Ariel is also very explicitly a Precure fan, and Precure is a magical girl metaseries which has been airing for over 20 years. Ariel, like a lot of now grown-up Precure fans, is a cynical adult who lives in a cruel world with no justice, yet deep down still wishes on some level that she could become a magical girl, and be someone capable of bringing justice and hope to the world. Needless to say, that’s one of the reasons why she jumps at the chance to become a magical girl. Solana, meanwhile, embodies the sun—She’s literally named ‘sunshine’, she has a bright, energetic personality, everyone naturally gravitates toward her, and she’s no stranger to being the centre of the universe. Everyone wants to either be her, or be with her, but being an attractive woman gets her a lot of unwanted attention, especially from men like Brooklyn, who won’t take no for an answer. She, like Ariel, has a certain degree of cynicism to her, and she’s sick of people wanting her for her body, and nothing else, but unlike Ariel, who openly expresses her disgust at being treated like a sex object, Solana bottles it up. Ariel is the only person in Solana’s life who she feels comfortable with expressing her disgust at the sex-obsessed society they live in around.
Ariel and Solana’s careers, meanwhile, represent the expectations that the internet has of different celebrities. Ariel is a public figure, but because she’s a game developer, the only thing that the public expects of her is to keep creating exemplary games. She’s not expected to build a parasocial relationship with her fanbase, unlike Solana, and she is under no obligation to entertain them with her personality, or her body. Ariel has an elusive nature, and does not trust the public, but she doesn’t have to—As long as she keeps creating marketable games, she’s able to stay in the dark. Solana doesn’t have that luxury because she’s a Vtuber and sex worker—Her personality and her body are her entire business model, and because she’s signed to an agency, she has no control over anything she puts on the internet. Her every move is decided by VSweeties, and they will force her to sell every last piece of herself as long as it helps feed the parasocial relationship that she has created with her fanbase.
Thanks for the ask, and have a great rest of your weekend! ^_^
